“I will only say one word more,” he replied. “Have you met him?”
“I have not. I can assure you that at the present moment there is no more of an understanding between me and the young man you so much disliked than between him and you. You told me to forget him; and I have forgotten him.”
“Oh, well; though you did not obey me in the beginning, you are a good girl, Elfride, in obeying me at last.”
“Don’t call me ‘good,’ papa,” she said bitterly; “you don’t know—and the less said about some things the better. Remember, Mr. Knight knows nothing about the other. Oh, how wrong it all is! I don’t know what I am coming to.”
“As matters stand, I should be inclined to tell him; or, at any rate, I should not alarm myself about his knowing. He found out the other day that this was the parish young Smith’s father lives in—what puts you in such a flurry?”
“I can’t say; but promise—pray don’t let him know! It would be my ruin!”
“Pooh, child. Knight is a good fellow and a clever man; but at the same time it does not escape my perceptions that he is no great catch for you. Men of his turn of mind are nothing so wonderful in the way of husbands. If you had chosen to wait, you might have mated with a much wealthier man. But remember, I have not a word to say against your having him, if you like him. Charlotte is delighted, as you know.”
“Well, papa,” she said, smiling hopefully through a sigh, “it is nice to feel that in giving way to—to caring for him, I have pleased my family. But I am not good; oh no, I am very far from that!”
“None of us are good, I am sorry to say,” said her father blandly; “but girls have a chartered right to change their minds, you know. It has been recognized by poets from time immemorial. Catullus says, ‘Mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento—’ What a memory mine is! However, the passage is, that a woman’s words to a lover are as a matter of course written only on wind and water. Now don’t be troubled about that, Elfride.”
“Ah, you don’t know!”